Climate change: back to square one

“A doctorate teaches you how to obfuscate simple information,” said Dr Mubashir Aziz in his deep tone with a ubiquitous smile. It was his first lecture in our class as he returned from Japan after completing his PhD. He had some charm that is often found in people having their hearts in the right place.

Dr Aziz is now in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but his words echoed in my mind years after I heard them as I was at a conference on climate change last year.

This is what scientist mostly do, wrapping simple information in scientific terminologies and research jargon — that is why there are courses specially tailored for focusing on their communication skills and guiding them on how to talk to the masses! Perhaps a sense of superiority seeps into their conversation; they enjoy people’s eyes wide open in amazement and their jaws dropping in suspense in attempts to grasp what the latest research is all about!

The guy in front of me was trying to wrap simple concepts into intricate terminologies — maybe in an attempt to sound sophisticated. However, sometimes one cannot help but feel perplexed knowing that the only thing scientists are telling us about climate change is that we just need to live like our ancestors — all in fancy words!

For instance, the world now is stressing the need for green buildings. The concept of green buildings is that they do not generate harmful gases such as carbon dioxide because very little cement is used in the construction. Resources are not wasted; water is used efficiently; and very little electricity is needed to maintain the temperature of the building in summers and winters. Also, these buildings have a kitchen garden. Sounds like big research. Except it is not!

Those of us who hail from villages can relate it is just a mention of our nani’s house. Three decades ago, all of our ancestors lived in green buildings: something scientists now stress to combat the need of climate change after years of research on disaster risk mitigation. Those communities were a perfect example of green sustainability. How?

The houses were made up of thick mud walls providing insulation. In the courtyards were verandas having various trees providing oxygen, shade fruits and lowering the temperature of the house. People would have chicken and livestock in their houses to obtain meat and eggs. Fruits from the kitchen garden were obtained and their remains were used as fodder for the animals. The dropping of chicken and livestock acted as compost for the trees. The roofs were high and rooms were well lit, reducing the need for artificial air conditioning and lighting. Hence, an ecosystem exists keeping a sustainable environment.

At night, the entire family would take out their charpoys and in a row, all members of the family would sleep in one pedestal fan! Gen Z and Alpha have to go through thick books just to adopt something we had owned and abandoned only to know that what we adopted was inferior to what we had!

Another term is ‘recycling’. One of the very few memories of my grandfather I have involves telling me that we will not throw the glass bottle of a soft drink because we have to return it to the shopkeeper and get our cashback. Doing this has huge environmental impacts as it reduces the environmental degradation that results from producing new materials. In addition, he would take a handmade bag with him to the market.

After then plastic mania happened. Everything because disposable! Plastic bottles replaced glass bottles, handmade bags changed to plastic ones, and these littered everything: our sewers, roads, grounds, parks, lakes, seas and even oceans!

The climate conference I was the part of emphasised the need to use water bottles again! They spend millions of dollars just to pitch what we had in the past. Today the world is reeling to ban plastic and go back to reusable bags that we used three decades ago.

Maybe all we have learnt about saving the planet is to live like our ancestors. Everything else is just trying to say the same thing in difficult words!